Pam Chowhan & the Fluid Piano™
“…here, at last, is a piano that can easily sit within any musical context in the world, and that opens up new and infinite horizons of expressive possibilities.”
Pam Chowhan, pianist, composer,
Head of Planning, London’s Southbank Centre.
So what makes the Fluid Piano so special?
If you imagine an Acoustic piano with no tuning restrictions, a piano with an immense diversity of ‘bespoke‘ tuning layouts and ‘indigenous’ scales from around the world (e.g. from Middle Eastern cultures) and a piano that even allows you to alter the tuning whilst playing – or simply to remain in the standard ‘western’ tuning should you wish – then you are half way to imagining the Fluid Piano. One of its beauties is that it enables musicians to alter each note individually and separately by precise microtonal intervals per note, before or during performance. This liberates the instrument from the restrictions of ‘western’ tuning to make the Fluid Piano the first ‘multi-cultural’ Acoustic piano.
The Guardian:
/nilsjohan
June 12th, 2010 at 1:44
Quite special. Music evolution. Love it!
June 13th, 2010 at 1:19
This brings to mind the works of Don Ellis with his quarter-tone trumpet and the Hindustani Jazz Sextet. I think he would have loved this.
June 13th, 2010 at 21:10
That is fantastic, I need to get one. That guy has put so much work into that piano. What an achievement.
June 16th, 2010 at 20:28
HI,
I have a passion for classical music and I love the piano (do not know how to play).
I was enchanted by your fluid piano, and I ask you: what do you think if the microtonalities adjustment mechanism could be used by feet?
Do you think that would be more practical for a player (always leave the hands free)?
Thank you
bruno
June 29th, 2010 at 4:52
I am involved with Flamenco….what a great instrument for a Flamenco musician. So much of the guitar, vocals, and other instrumentation of Flamenco REQUIRES bending the pitches. What a brilliant concept. Ole!!!
June 29th, 2010 at 16:48
For heavens sake ? Let a PIANO be a PIANO and call this “TOY” something else !!!
June 29th, 2010 at 17:39
It is interesting for the culture of the music
June 29th, 2010 at 22:49
As a western music classical pianist I see only one advantage to this thing – you can tune the piano without tools or pin/pin-block damage and keep it at “concert” pitch over the seasons. Don’t need to pay a tuning tech, either. That said, it’s not cross-strung (obviously) so it’s “long for it’s size” and may sound a bit thin compared to a normal grand of same nominal size, sort of “pre-modern grand” sound. If wanted, this effect could be done more cheaply and effectively as a digital piano, plus a good sound system of course. The various tunings could be refined and stored for the various instruments being emulated. Ingenious, but not for me!
June 29th, 2010 at 23:25
Hey kaarin, if people had the ‘let a piano be a piano” attitude when the first advances in piano making were introduced we’d all still be playing clavichords!
June 30th, 2010 at 9:07
Hello, i am a piano buff ,i would like to know if this piano is for sale and the current price ,lets say in US$ .I am in South Australia .Hope its on the market. Felix.
June 30th, 2010 at 9:27
well i have 6 pianos and 3 are digital, i could`nt appreciate the utube vidio as it was stop start 7sec off 3 sec on. however if this instrument is based on a concert grand then i want one. The other thing the action ,”can this be moderated”?. as a short note i am the proud owner of the worst digital piano on the planet from China sold in Australia under the name MeloDIC, words cannot describe this heap of junk i bought it on the net. My best digital is a Technics love it. Sorry to rant on .Felix.
July 6th, 2010 at 13:46
Pretty G! is what my sister would say. I like it -it’s kind of like piano 2.0 well since there was the harpichord and all sorts of pianos invented before until the standard acoustic one. Then came the digital kind. An acoustic that can make a wide range of tonalities is COOL! It’s very unique -the ability to adjust microtonalities and such -still the better question is: who can play this instrument to the breath of musicality it has to offer?
July 18th, 2010 at 18:25
I agree with, “Let the piano, be a piano” and call this instrument something else. I believe a sort of macro-evolution has occurred here, a new species has been developed. This makes the possibilities BEYOND piano, so it really is a whole new animal. The music that would be composed on it will be different with the bending of notes, etc…yes, a marvel, but not a traditional piano. The beauty of that is to be appreciated separately. Changing it so drastically, really makes it something else.
July 24th, 2010 at 13:38
Hi KenH, good point ;o) … however – at least in my opinion – the development from clavichord to piano was an ‘improvement’. No need to improve a good piano!!! Therefore I repeat:Let a piano be a piano and call this toy something else ;o)
August 16th, 2010 at 5:38
Kaarin,
Your opinion would register more effectively with me if you would cease use of the pejorative “toy” characterization of this instrument. Your choice of that term comes across as pretty snobbish. I wonder what word you would apply to a Fender-Rhodes electronic piano? Or a Mellotron? Or any number of other keyboard innovations over the past 40 years that are used commonly in the world of jazz, rock and world music. Are those “toys” also? But even for those who are acoustice “purissts”, it seems to me that this new instrument is a serious effort at expanding the acoustic realm of tuneful percussion instruments — which is what a piano is. I happen to love the flexibility demonstrated in the demo shown here, and look foward to hearing more.